TR Carowinds 9-14/15-02

Pale Rider

Thursday, September 19, 2002 6:09 PM

TR Carowinds 9-14/15-02

This was our third consecutive year going to Carowinds for my company’s annual family day but only the first where we were going to actually ride the coasters, so Kim and I were pretty excited. We brought along our usual partner in crime, Greg and one of his co- workers, also named Greg (We’ll call him Greg #2). As we left Greg’s house (he only lives about 5 min. away) we noticed that the sky might live up to that mornings forecast of rain. Naturally, as we pull up to park, it starts drizzling. Then in starts raining. As we entered the park around 9:45 there was a nice light rain going. We immediately headed straight for Top Gun and saw that there was a small line waiting for the season pass holders to get done with their 9:30 ERT. There was barely anyone in the queue, so we only had about a 1-2 train wait for front. I had ridden Top Gun back in July with Greg about 5 times but hadn’t done the front yet, so this my first time. Wow, what an awesome ride! I just love this coaster and the view in the front is incredible. They didn’t have the mist tunnel on but it didn’t matter, as we got plenty wet from the rain. We did another lap in the front, and then went for the back, where we now have a new found appreciation. This thing just pulls some awesome Gs in the back, especially during the first part of the batwing. I also loved the pull down the first drop. Very nice. We did another lap in the front and then decided to check out some other rides.

We next hit Thunder Road. We did a lap going forwards in the front first and I was expecting a great ride, especially considering that it was raining. Unfortunately it was just average, as we got no airtime whatsoever. Our next lap was backwards in the back seat and was much better. We especially liked the sudden pull down the hill after the turn around, as it took us totally by surprise. This was also a much smoother and an overall better ride than the last time I had ridden it backwards in the back and had gotten all beat up. We caught a quick showing of the 7th Portal (which looked slightly out of focus) and went on our way. Ricochet was closed and the Super Saturator didn’t have any water running so we skipped both of those. Next up was the Carolina Cyclone. I really like this looper and was looking forward to riding it again. We walked onto the very back and enjoyed a short but sweet lap as we experienced some nice, strong Gs getting pulled through the two vertical loops. We weren’t going to do a lap on the Hurler but decided to anyway. I’m glad we did, as we enjoyed a relatively smooth ride in the front. I even had my arms up the whole way, which is something that I’m still getting used to doing. Maybe the rain helped.

Anyway, it was around 11:30 and time for the picnic portion of the day. After that was over, around 1:00 or so, Kim and I went over to Guest Services and used our free family day tickets towards the purchase of 2003 season passes. Not too bad. By this time, the sky had cleared up and it was on to Vortex. We did a lap in the front and really enjoyed it. The layout isn’t nearly as dynamic as the other B&M standup I’ve been on (The Georgia Scorcher) but going through the corkscrew standing up is still a wild sensation and the seats didn’t hurt as much as they did last time. Greg #2 had to get going around 2:00, so we decided to end the day with some more Top Gun rides (2 front, 1 2nd from front).

Since our day was cut a little short, Kim and I felt that we still had some unfinished business with the park (ie. more rides on Top Gun ) before we went home to SC. The next day, we left Greg’s place around 12:00 and headed back to the park. The sky was once again looking threatening, like it would open up at any minute. We were afraid that if a storm came, they would shut all of the rides down but amazingly one never did. We once again went immediately to Top Gun and got in 2 laps, one in the front and one in the back. It was then onto the Cyclone for another lap in the middle and one more on Vortex in the back. I wanted to take a lap on Taxi Jam but was disappointed to see that you need a kid to ride. Man, I wish I could go to the ACE event next month, with the early ERT on this! Oh well, I guess I’ll have to wait until next year. We finished up the day with 2 more laps on Top Gun (1 front, 1 back). All in all it was a great weekend at Carowinds. The weather for the most part cooperated, the sparse crowds lead to walk-ons for everything all weekend, we only ended up paying $78 for 2 season passes and we got in 10 laps on Top Gun. Like I said before, I wish we could do the ACE event next month but unfortunately we’ll be doing a coaster trip in Florida that weekend. We did get tickets to Scarowinds though, so we’ll be back one more time before the season is done.